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Simona Mercy
Simona Mercy
New Member
October 15, 2026

Urgent: Figma Design File Suddenly Disappeared — Owner and Admin Cannot Find It

Urgent: Figma Design File Suddenly Disappeared — Owner and Admin Cannot Find It

Hi everyone,

I’m facing a serious issue with one of our company’s Figma design files and would appreciate any help or guidance from the community.

File: Rego
Original file URL: https://www.figma.com/design/79KToD9v5xBJOW7AwSkhJV/Rego?node-id=10720-111353

What happened?

The file suddenly became inaccessible, even though I previously had full access and was working with it normally.

When I try to open the original link, I get this error:

“Unable to open file. It looks like there’s an issue with this Design file’s sharing settings. We’ve emailed the owner to let them know.”

The situation is particularly concerning because:

  • The file has disappeared from my Recents and the original project.

  • The original file owner cannot find it either.

  • Our company admin has checked the permissions, but the issue remains.

  • Figma says it has emailed the owner about the sharing-settings issue.

What I have tried

  • Verified my access with the company admin.

  • Checked whether the file is still visible in Figma.

  • Tried opening the original file URL again.

My questions

  1. Has anyone experienced this exact error where the file disappeared from both the owner's and other team members' accounts?

  2. Could this be a Figma-side issue with the file's metadata, sharing settings, or workspace?

  3. Is there a way to determine whether the file was deleted, moved, or has become inaccessible due to a technical issue?

  4. Can Figma Support recover the original file, including its pages, components, comments, and version history?

  5. Is there anything else we should check before assuming the file is lost?

This file contains important company design work, and we would really like to recover the original rather than recreate it.

If anyone from the Figma team or someone who has experienced the same issue could advise on the next steps, I would be very grateful.

Thank you!

1 reply

adamsmasher
Figmate
adamsmasher
Figmate
October 15, 2026

Hi ​@Simona Mercy. Thanks for your post! I understand why this is worrying, especially with no one being able to locate the file.

 

Is it possible the file is in someone’s drafts? If that person also no longer has the seat needed to share it, that could cause what you are seeing. For example, downgrading someone to a View seat can make their shared drafts inaccessible to collaborators. 

 

A few checks would help narrow this down:

  1. Could the original owner check the email Figma sent, confirm they’re signed into the account that owns the file, and check Drafts in each relevant team or organization? It would also help to know whether ownership, the file’s location, or anyone’s seat changed recently.
  2. Check Trash/Deleted in the relevant team or organization, including any “Created by” filter. Someone with the necessary edit access may have deleted the file even if they weren’t its owner. If the whole team was deleted, its files won’t appear individually in Trash; team admins have a 28-day restoration window. 
  3. Have the owner or company admin contact Support now, alongside those checks. Include the exact error, when the file last opened successfully (with timezone), the expected project/team, and any recent ownership, seat, or membership changes. 

 

To answer your recovery question, restoring a file from Trash normally preserves the original content, comments, version history, and library connections. If it was permanently deleted, our support team will need to check its deletion state and whether recovery is still possible before confirming what can be restored.

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